Shortages in drinking water supplies is an acute global problem. Some shortages are caused by extensive leakage of drinking water from water supply systems. Water leakage can cause over 20-30% and even over 50% of the losses of drinking water in a typical urban water system. The older the water system the higher the chance for water leakage. Most water leakages occur underground and are hard to detect. Such underground leakages may only be detected only after causing above the ground floods or damage to buildings, infrastructure and the like.
There is no good current solution for detecting underground water leakages. An inspector can use a primitive device placing it above a place where he suspects an underground leakage exists, and attempting to identify water leakage sounds. Another way is to conduct a local excavation at the suspected area. However, local excavations are expensive, and may require the use of extensive algorithms which require pre-obtained data from the area of inspection and from the local authorities (such as municipalities).
Natural gas usually contains 98% CH4, 1.16% higher hydrocarbons, 0.05% CO2, 0.79% N2 and 0.20 mg/m3 S. Natural gas, like water, is transported underground with a ramified network of pipes, in many cases in very rural areas. In most cases the accessibility to these areas is very limited which results in poor ability to inspect the conditions and conduct maintenance of the pipes to an acceptable level according to the maintenance manuals. Gas leaks may happen due to faults (e.g., cracks) in the pipes, usually due to aging of the materials constructing the pipes or due to mechanical damage caused by an external force such as tree roots, ground movements and the like.
There is no good current solution for detecting underground gas leakages. Currently, an inspector has to walk over the underground pipe line while using his smell sense or a probe in order to detect small residuals of methane in the atmosphere. This method is unreliable and slow. A fast and reliable solution is needed.